Chicago Marathon Race Report
Chicago experienced the hottest temperatures ever for the marathon this year. It was absolutely brutal. Here's a detailed report:
I got up at 5:30 a.m. and got ready for the race. When we headed outside, it actually felt pretty good outside, so I was hoping that perhaps the heat wouldn't be as bad as predicted. We took the train down to the start and by the time we got there it was already hot enough outside that I was sweating just walking to the bustling starting area. I bid farewell to my friend Jene, who had a position in one of the starting corrals. The corrals are for people who have run certain times in their age and gender so that they don't have to be in the massive open starting area. I went and checked my bag and then entered the open starting area at the back. I spend the next thirty minutes working my way up toward the 3:30 pace area, but I was only able to make it up to around the 4 hour pace area before the crowd of anxious runners was too thick to naviagate through. As we waited on the start of the race, I chatted with an older gentleman who was from Kerrville, Texas. Finally the start of the race was signalled. I waited as the thousands of people in front of me began the race before I was able to actually start forward progress. When I finally crossed the starting line, over eight minutes had already elapsed on the official race clock. Its a good thing someone invented chip timing, which doesn't start an individual runner's time until he/she actually crosses the starting line. Just walking to the starting line caused me to sweat quite a bit. I was already drinking water from the bottle I had planned to carry for the first five miles or so in order to skip the initial crowded water stations.
I was afraid my first mile would be ridiculously slow due to the mass start, but I found it somewhat easy to navigate through the crowd, as the streets for the first mile were quite wide allowing me to pass people on the edge of the street. The crowd cheering us on was five and six people deep for much of the first mile. When I crossed the first mile marker, I was right on pace as my watch showed 8:00. Unfortunately, the streets narrowed after the first mile and I was blocked by the slower runners. Several times I was run into by inconsiderate or inexperienced runners who decided they would cut in front of me and stop to say hello to family and friends who were cheering them on. When I crossed the second mile clock, I had logged an 8:20 second mile, which was putting me at a deficit I knew I'd have to make up if I were to reach my goal of a sub-3:30 time. As I went into miles three and four, I logged sub 8 minute miles, slowly chipping away at the twenty seconds added in mile two. The heat was getting worse as time ticked by and by mile four I was completely soaked with sweat. I finished off my bottle of water before mile five and had already taken the first of the electrolyte tablets I brought along to help ward off muscle cramps. Feeling sluggish just before mile five, I took the first of my power gels to try and give me a little boost. The energy kicked in and I continued to chip away at the extra time, but I started to wonder how long I could hold the pace due to the heat. At mile eight, the course made a turn onto a road where the buildings shaded much of the street. With the slight breeze, I felt a bit rejuvinated and continued my assault. As I glanced around, I realized two things. There were already people walking, struggling in the heat. The other was that that crowd had not dissapated. The people were no longer six deep, but there wasn't an inch of the course that wasn't occupied by people cheering. I hit the 15K mark a little slower than my projected pace, but I was still whittling away at the twenty seconds I lost on mile two.
Passing the halfway mark, I was only about two minutes off my overall projected pace, but reality was quickly sinking in. Looking around, there were people going down everywhere. Multitudes were walking. Everywhere I looked people were trying to stretch out muscle cramps. Paramedics were treating those who had succumbed to the intense heat. Just after the halfway point, I spotted a marquee outside of a bank. Flashing before me was "10:02 a.m." immediately followed by "92 degrees." It was somewhere around this juncture that I realized that there was no way I was coming in under 3:30, so I readjusted my goal to run a sub 3:40. I continued to put one foot in front of the other, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. Even the crowds cheering couldn't help motivate me, and as I looked around my fellow runners all I saw was suffering. By the time I reached mile 15, I decided to throw time goals out the window and just get myself across the finish line. I started noticing people with pace cards on their backs that read "3:10" and "3:20" running with those of us who had fallen to a 3:50 pace. I reached into my pocked to grab another electrolyte tablet and only found loose salt in my pocket. I had sweat so much that the gel caplets had dissolved in my pocket leaving behind the salt they once contained. Wiping the salt granules from my hand, I looked over and saw that one of the official pacers for the race had removed his pacing sign and had succumbed to the heat. At this time, I also realized that I had stopped sweating, which was an obvious sign of dehydration. I knew I was going to be in trouble if I were to keep exerting myself, but I didn't want to stop. Luckily I was approaching a water station. I jogged to the water station and picked up two cups of Gatorade Endurance. I downed both full cups and moved on to the water station where I drank a glass of water and then dumped another cup over my head. I slowed my pace quite a bit and added in sections of walking to minimize exertion, while I repeated my massive intake of water for the next few miles until I felt sweat carving its way down my face once again.
As I continued my slow pace through the later miles of the race, I noticed the steady stream of runners crowding to the side of the street into a small strip of shadow cast by the buildings seeking any refuge from the blistering heat. I ran through the Mexican neighborhood and took advantage of a couple water stations that were run by spectators. Through the neighborhoods, spectators were spraying down runners with their water hoses and businesses were handing out ice to the overheated runners. I noticed a runner strapped to a stretcher being attended to by medical staff. As we neared mile 18, we entered Chinatown. There is no worse smell at mile 18 in an inferno than the thick smell of chinese food. I struggled through Chinatown and passed mile 20. The water stations in the later part of the race were stocked with bananas, which I devoured. Bananas are a great source of energy and help to hydrate due to their high water content. I had to keep telling myself to just get the next mile marker. It was difficult to push through and times and my body wanted to quit. I took a few short walking breaks to extend the little energy I had on reserve.
Once I crossed the 25 mile marker, I increased my pace just wanting to end the hell I was enduring. I came upon the second to last turn in the race, less than a half mile from the finish when I heard someone yell out, "stop running, the race has been cancelled. just walk." Thinking it was some sort of sick joke, I continued running. A short time later before I made my final turn to the last stretch, cops and medics were all yelling to stop running. The race had been cancelled. There was no way I was going to give it up only a quarter mile from the finish. As I continued to run, a cop stepped out into the stream of runners with his hand up telling me to stop running. I looked at him and said "I've run 26 miles, there's no way I'm stopping now." I sidestepped him, made my final turn and took the finish line. It was a slow 4:04:xx finish, but I felt fortunate just to cross the finish line.
In the hours after the race, I began to learn just how brutal the sun had been. Over 10,000 entrants didn't even show up for the race. Of the 35,000 that ran, only 24,000 finished. They ran out of ambulances as over 300 people were taken to hospitals. Several people were in critical condition. One man died due to a heart condition, but I'm sure the heat only exacerbated his condition. Runners still on the course were re-routed or bussed back to the starting line. They were not allowed to finish due to the extreme conditions. The race was absolutely brutal, and I was lucky enough to finish. Had I not readjusted my goals during the race and listened to my body, I could have very easily been on of the people who were hospitalized.
I got up at 5:30 a.m. and got ready for the race. When we headed outside, it actually felt pretty good outside, so I was hoping that perhaps the heat wouldn't be as bad as predicted. We took the train down to the start and by the time we got there it was already hot enough outside that I was sweating just walking to the bustling starting area. I bid farewell to my friend Jene, who had a position in one of the starting corrals. The corrals are for people who have run certain times in their age and gender so that they don't have to be in the massive open starting area. I went and checked my bag and then entered the open starting area at the back. I spend the next thirty minutes working my way up toward the 3:30 pace area, but I was only able to make it up to around the 4 hour pace area before the crowd of anxious runners was too thick to naviagate through. As we waited on the start of the race, I chatted with an older gentleman who was from Kerrville, Texas. Finally the start of the race was signalled. I waited as the thousands of people in front of me began the race before I was able to actually start forward progress. When I finally crossed the starting line, over eight minutes had already elapsed on the official race clock. Its a good thing someone invented chip timing, which doesn't start an individual runner's time until he/she actually crosses the starting line. Just walking to the starting line caused me to sweat quite a bit. I was already drinking water from the bottle I had planned to carry for the first five miles or so in order to skip the initial crowded water stations.
I was afraid my first mile would be ridiculously slow due to the mass start, but I found it somewhat easy to navigate through the crowd, as the streets for the first mile were quite wide allowing me to pass people on the edge of the street. The crowd cheering us on was five and six people deep for much of the first mile. When I crossed the first mile marker, I was right on pace as my watch showed 8:00. Unfortunately, the streets narrowed after the first mile and I was blocked by the slower runners. Several times I was run into by inconsiderate or inexperienced runners who decided they would cut in front of me and stop to say hello to family and friends who were cheering them on. When I crossed the second mile clock, I had logged an 8:20 second mile, which was putting me at a deficit I knew I'd have to make up if I were to reach my goal of a sub-3:30 time. As I went into miles three and four, I logged sub 8 minute miles, slowly chipping away at the twenty seconds added in mile two. The heat was getting worse as time ticked by and by mile four I was completely soaked with sweat. I finished off my bottle of water before mile five and had already taken the first of the electrolyte tablets I brought along to help ward off muscle cramps. Feeling sluggish just before mile five, I took the first of my power gels to try and give me a little boost. The energy kicked in and I continued to chip away at the extra time, but I started to wonder how long I could hold the pace due to the heat. At mile eight, the course made a turn onto a road where the buildings shaded much of the street. With the slight breeze, I felt a bit rejuvinated and continued my assault. As I glanced around, I realized two things. There were already people walking, struggling in the heat. The other was that that crowd had not dissapated. The people were no longer six deep, but there wasn't an inch of the course that wasn't occupied by people cheering. I hit the 15K mark a little slower than my projected pace, but I was still whittling away at the twenty seconds I lost on mile two.
Passing the halfway mark, I was only about two minutes off my overall projected pace, but reality was quickly sinking in. Looking around, there were people going down everywhere. Multitudes were walking. Everywhere I looked people were trying to stretch out muscle cramps. Paramedics were treating those who had succumbed to the intense heat. Just after the halfway point, I spotted a marquee outside of a bank. Flashing before me was "10:02 a.m." immediately followed by "92 degrees." It was somewhere around this juncture that I realized that there was no way I was coming in under 3:30, so I readjusted my goal to run a sub 3:40. I continued to put one foot in front of the other, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. Even the crowds cheering couldn't help motivate me, and as I looked around my fellow runners all I saw was suffering. By the time I reached mile 15, I decided to throw time goals out the window and just get myself across the finish line. I started noticing people with pace cards on their backs that read "3:10" and "3:20" running with those of us who had fallen to a 3:50 pace. I reached into my pocked to grab another electrolyte tablet and only found loose salt in my pocket. I had sweat so much that the gel caplets had dissolved in my pocket leaving behind the salt they once contained. Wiping the salt granules from my hand, I looked over and saw that one of the official pacers for the race had removed his pacing sign and had succumbed to the heat. At this time, I also realized that I had stopped sweating, which was an obvious sign of dehydration. I knew I was going to be in trouble if I were to keep exerting myself, but I didn't want to stop. Luckily I was approaching a water station. I jogged to the water station and picked up two cups of Gatorade Endurance. I downed both full cups and moved on to the water station where I drank a glass of water and then dumped another cup over my head. I slowed my pace quite a bit and added in sections of walking to minimize exertion, while I repeated my massive intake of water for the next few miles until I felt sweat carving its way down my face once again.
As I continued my slow pace through the later miles of the race, I noticed the steady stream of runners crowding to the side of the street into a small strip of shadow cast by the buildings seeking any refuge from the blistering heat. I ran through the Mexican neighborhood and took advantage of a couple water stations that were run by spectators. Through the neighborhoods, spectators were spraying down runners with their water hoses and businesses were handing out ice to the overheated runners. I noticed a runner strapped to a stretcher being attended to by medical staff. As we neared mile 18, we entered Chinatown. There is no worse smell at mile 18 in an inferno than the thick smell of chinese food. I struggled through Chinatown and passed mile 20. The water stations in the later part of the race were stocked with bananas, which I devoured. Bananas are a great source of energy and help to hydrate due to their high water content. I had to keep telling myself to just get the next mile marker. It was difficult to push through and times and my body wanted to quit. I took a few short walking breaks to extend the little energy I had on reserve.
Once I crossed the 25 mile marker, I increased my pace just wanting to end the hell I was enduring. I came upon the second to last turn in the race, less than a half mile from the finish when I heard someone yell out, "stop running, the race has been cancelled. just walk." Thinking it was some sort of sick joke, I continued running. A short time later before I made my final turn to the last stretch, cops and medics were all yelling to stop running. The race had been cancelled. There was no way I was going to give it up only a quarter mile from the finish. As I continued to run, a cop stepped out into the stream of runners with his hand up telling me to stop running. I looked at him and said "I've run 26 miles, there's no way I'm stopping now." I sidestepped him, made my final turn and took the finish line. It was a slow 4:04:xx finish, but I felt fortunate just to cross the finish line.
In the hours after the race, I began to learn just how brutal the sun had been. Over 10,000 entrants didn't even show up for the race. Of the 35,000 that ran, only 24,000 finished. They ran out of ambulances as over 300 people were taken to hospitals. Several people were in critical condition. One man died due to a heart condition, but I'm sure the heat only exacerbated his condition. Runners still on the course were re-routed or bussed back to the starting line. They were not allowed to finish due to the extreme conditions. The race was absolutely brutal, and I was lucky enough to finish. Had I not readjusted my goals during the race and listened to my body, I could have very easily been on of the people who were hospitalized.